You do realise that this guy is an establishment media figure over here in little old England? And that he does most of his work for a broadcaster funded by taxation?
I want a flight to America – preferably one of the bits that isn’t going to secede. (The latter half of that sentence is a joke, so don’t ban me).

Darren

Don’t worry, the places that talk about seceding _get_ more Federal money than the _give_. Make your own conclusions as to their likelihood to carry-through.

ivan_the_mad

My response to asses positing Malthusian disasters as cause for limiting population is a less than charitable “Well, you can always remove yourself from the equation”. Same for the folks who bravely don’t have children to save the world from their carbon emissions.

Katie in FL

I guess he won’t be invited to any more baby showers.

Sagrav

Haw! That guy sure is a jerk, pointing out that mankind has reproduced past the carrying capacity of the planet! Let’s compare his beliefs to Nazi Germany’s ethnic and racial cleansing policies!

Take that, person advocating responsibility! Now go have twelve babies. Remember, the world is literally infinite in size and resources, and the human population has absolutely no negative impact on the environment! Forests are ugly, and sprawling slums crammed with people are beautiful!

That guy sure is a jerk. Sitting in his comfortable life declaring the end of the world if we don’t stop creating the next generation. Let’s compare his beliefs to Nazi Germany’s ethnic and racial cleansing policies, because every Utopia starts with the idea that if we got the right people together and left the others out of it, we’d have no worries, no troubles. Let’s recognize that we have overcrowding and deep poverty not because any of the children or families are plagues but because we have governments and individuals and powers that do not wish to address the individual and systemic needs of others because it is much more simple to either kill them off, ignore them, or keep them so marginalized that we don’t have to address the problem and we can just throw up our hands and say, for the good of Gaia, no future kids, and the sprawling slums are crammed with beautiful people…that require the lazy hearts of the west to awaken to, and help.

But, hey, he gets to vent his spleen against godbotherers and other twits who have more than 1.9 children, so it’s all good. At least until his social insurance for retirement is slashed to the bone because there aren’t enough people paying into it, and–bonus!–he has no family members to care for him.

But, yeah, he’s better than the rest of us, so there.

Mark Shea

You apparently haven’t gotten the memo that we are facing a population fall off. Extermination advocates are usually out of touch with reality.

David Norris

Mark, you know the best places in the world for wildlife?

The DMZ in Korea and Chernobyl. Humanity is literally worse than Chernobyl when it comes to its impact on the Earth. Human existence is a disaster for 95% of the species on this planet, and that’s just a fact, uncomfortable as it may be.

dpt

Actually, nature itself is worse for wildlife. Just look at the thousands upon thousands of species that are extinct–long before humankind–thanks to calamities of nature.

Brian

Only because, as a selfish species that doesn’t pay attention to the holy command to be faithful stewards of the land, we act in ways to use land and then not clean up after ourselves.

Lots of good research and practice is going on regarding reforming agriculture into a sustainable process. This is done by mimicing nature and polyculture instead of looking at soil fertility as an expendable resource. As a result, farmland soils, especially in Australia, are becoming more naturally fertile. I’ve even seen examples of this reclaiming desert land in the Jordan Valley. Humans, having been the problem, are an essential source of the solution.

Eventually, we will have to realign our processes toward sustainability. The impediment is our desire to have fresh strawberries when they are not in season locally. But none of these processes will happen without empowering and encouraging local food systems and more personal involvement in food production (ie, go outside and start your own organic garden.)

As someone who pays for Sir David whether they care to or not through the TV licence fee – and I will take a bow here for having coined the phrase ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd (Not Sir David Attenborough)” – those who focus on Sir David’s comments about humanity being a plague and all that jazz forget that the good Sir D. , the younger brother of Lord Richard Attenborough, has himself left a Hulk-sized carboon footprint on the face of the Earth through jetting all over the world making those documentaries. No intellectual inconsistency here! No sirree!

Although he can bray about the End Times like a jackass on crystal meth, Sir David is actually far gentler than some of the UK’s Establishment misanthropes. HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, the Queen’s hubby himself, is on record as having once said that,

“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation” (see James Delingpole’s book ‘Watermelons’ for the original citation).

Compared to the violence of the views expressed by Edinburgh, who just doesn’t want to see it happen but would like to be the agent by which it happens, Attenborough doesn’t even want to hold the coats.